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Books Mom Will Love 2018

Mother's Day

Books Mom Will Love 2018

Mother’s Day is a time to recognize the woman who raised and nurtured us. To celebrate, we gave you the opportunity to win books and goodies for you or the special lady in your life in our 13th annual "Books Mom Will Love" contest. Scroll down to see the five winners!

This year's featured titles are:

AS YOU WISH by Jude Deveraux

THE DEVIL'S REWARD by Emmanuelle de Villepin

ENIGMA by Catherine Coulter

I LIKED MY LIFE by Abby Fabiaschi

LILLIAN BOXFISH TAKES A WALK by Kathleen Rooney

MORNINGS ON MAIN by Jodi Thomas

THE RECIPE BOX by Viola Shipman

ROSIE COLORED GLASSES by Brianna Wolfson

SALT HOUSES by Hala Alyan

SHARP: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion, by Michelle Dean

THIS MESSY MAGNIFICENT LIFE: A Field Guide, by Geneen Roth

WATCH ME DISAPPEAR by Janelle Brown

THE WEIGHT OF INK by Rachel Kadish

WILD MOMS: Motherhood in the Animal Kingdom, by Dr. Carin Bondar

THE WISDOM OF SUNDAYS: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations, by Oprah Winfrey

Winners

Sixty-year-old Olivia’s first marriage was long and unhappy, but now she is thrilled to be starting her life with the man she’s always truly loved. Kathy is in her 40s and married to a handsome, successful businessman…who happens to be passionately in love with someone else. Twentysomething Elise is also in a troubled marriage, stuck with the man her wealthy parents chose for her. Though each of them wound up at the summerhouse for separate reasons, it’s not long before they begin to open up about their regrets, their wishes and their dreams. And when they’re presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, all three discover what can happen when dreams really do come true.

Christiane, 86 years old with a vibrant sense of humor, lives alone in a large apartment in the heart of Paris. Her daughter, Catherine, is her total opposite: sullen and uptight, filled with resentment toward her unfaithful Milanese husband. After discovering yet another affair, Catherine takes refuge in Paris at her mother’s home, accompanied by her own daughter, Luna. Christiane --- who, in spite of occasional dalliances on both sides, lived a beautiful love story with her late husband --- uses all of her freethinking charm in an effort to change Catherine’s rigid, self-pitying attitude.

Kara Moody’s perfect pregnancy turns into a nightmare when her newborn son is nowhere to be found in her Georgetown hospital. FBI agents Savich and Sherlock think they’re investigating an abduction, but soon discover their case is tangled in a web of medical mystery that could make immortality possible. Liam Hennessy, notorious thief and one of the FBI’s most wanted, has escaped into the deep woods of the Appalachians --- and when he wants to be hidden, few can find the Manta Ray. Special agents Jack Cabot and Cam Wittier are sent to find him, but they find something else entirely. As each agent tirelessly pursues their prey, the clock is ticking. Savich and his team will have to go way beyond the ordinary if they are to solve the cases of a lifetime.

Maddy is a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother. She is the cornerstone of her family, a true matriarch...until she commits suicide, leaving her husband Brady and teenage daughter Eve heartbroken and reeling. As they sift through details of her last days, trying to understand the woman they thought they knew, Brady and Eve are forced to come to terms with unsettling truths. Maddy, however, isn’t ready to leave her family forever. Watching from beyond, she tries to find the perfect replacement for herself. Will the mystery of Maddy ever come to rest? And can her family make peace with their history and begin to heal?

She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy’s to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. Now it’s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. It’s chilly enough out for her mink coat, and Manhattan is grittier now, but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changed --- and has not.

When Jillian James lands in the small town Texas community of Laurel Springs, she’s definitely not planning to stay --- except to find a few clues about the father who abandoned her and destroyed her faith in family. Connor Larady is a single dad, and the only one caring for his grandmother, Eugenia, who has Alzheimer’s. And now he has to close Eugenia’s quilt shop. When Connor meets down-on-her-luck Jillian, he’s out of options. Can he trust the newcomer to do right by his grandmother’s legacy? Jillian is done with relationships. But as she grows closer to Connor and Eugenia, she must consider giving up her nomadic life for a future with those who need her.

Samantha “Sam” Mullins felt trapped on her family’s orchard and pie shop, so she left with dreams of making her own mark in the world. But life as an overworked, undervalued sous chef at a reality star’s New York bakery is not what Sam dreamed. When the chef embarrasses Sam, she quits and returns home. Unemployed, single and defeated, she spends a summer working on her family’s orchard cooking and baking alongside the women in her life --- including her mother, Deana, and grandmother, Willo. One beloved, flour-flecked, ink-smeared recipe at a time, Sam begins to learn about and understand the women in her life, her family’s history, and her passion for food through their treasured recipe box.

Just as opposites attract, they can also cause friction, and no one feels that friction more than Rex and Rosie’s daughter, Willow. Rex is serious and unsentimental, and tapes checklists of chores on Willow’s bedroom door. Rosie is sparkling and enchanting, and meets Willow in their treehouse in the middle of the night to feast on candy. After Rex and Rosie’s divorce, Willow finds herself navigating their two different worlds. She is clearly under the spell of her exciting, fun-loving mother. But as Rosie’s behavior becomes more turbulent, the darker underpinnings of her manic love are revealed. Rex had removed his Rosie colored glasses long ago, but will Willow do the same?

On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities.

The 10 brilliant women who are the focus of SHARP came from different backgrounds and had vastly divergent political and artistic opinions. But they all made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of America and ultimately changed the course of the 20th century, in spite of the men who often undervalued or dismissed their work. These women --- Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler and Janet Malcolm --- are united by what Dean calls “sharpness,” the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit.

With humor, compassion and insight, THIS MESSY MAGNIFICENT LIFE explores the personal beliefs, hidden traumas and social pressures that shape not just women’s feelings about their bodies, but also their confidence, choices and relationships. This provocative, enchanting and sometimes laugh-out-loud look at the imperfect path women take to step into their own power, presence and ownership is based on Geneen Roth's personal journey and her decades of work with thousands of women around the country.

It’s been a year since Billie Flanagan went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail. Her husband and teenage daughter have been coping with Billie’s death the best they can: Jonathan drinks as he works on a loving memoir about his marriage; Olive grows remote, from both her father and her friends at the all-girls school she attends. But then Olive starts having strange visions of her mother, still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thought he understood about his wife. Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth.

Set in London of the 1660s and of the early 21st century, THE WEIGHT OF INK is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of newly discovered 17th-century Jewish documents, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive "Aleph."

Being a mom is a tough job --- but imagine doing it in the jungle or out on the safari, faced by the ravages of the elements, a scarcity of resources, and the threat of predators at all times of the day and night. In WILD MOMS, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the phenomenon of motherhood in the wild. She answers a whole host of questions about the animal kingdom: How do moms in the animal kingdom cope with crying babies and potty training? How does breastfeeding work in the wild? If children with disabilities do not fit into Darwin’s theory of evolution, then why do we see mothers from various mammalian groups providing ongoing care to disabled offspring?

Oprah Winfrey says "Super Soul Sunday" is the television show she was born to do. “I see it as an offering,” she explains. “If you want to be more fully present and live your life with a wide-open heart, this is the place to come to.” Now, for the first time, the aha moments of inspiration and soul-expanding insight that have enlightened millions on the three-time Emmy Award-winning program are collected in THE WISDOM OF SUNDAYS. Organized into 10 chapters --- each one representing a powerful step in Oprah’s own spiritual journey and introduced with an intimate, personal essay by Oprah herself --- the book features selections from the most meaningful conversations between Oprah and some of today’s most-admired thought-leaders.

Vote in Our Poll

Are you planning to give books as gifts this holiday season? Please check all that apply.

Word of Mouth

Tell us about the books you’ve finished reading with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from November 16th to November 30th at noon ET, three lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of TARGET: ALEX CROSS by James Patterson and WITNESS: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Ariel Burger.

Sounding Off on Audio

Tell us about the audiobooks you’ve finished listening to with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for both the performance and the content. During the contest period from November 1st to December 3rd at noon ET, two lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win the audio versions of Louise Penny's KINGDOM OF THE BLIND: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, read by Robert Bathurst, and Barbara Taylor Bradford's MASTER OF HIS FATE, read by Joan Walker.

Bookreporter.com Bets On

Books On Screen

November's Books on Screen roundup includes the feature filmsThe Girl in the Spider's Web, The Grinch and Boy Erased; the season four premiere of "Outlander" on Starz, along with the debut of two miniseries --- HBO's "My Brilliant Friend" and AMC's "The Little Drummer Girl" --- plus three Hallmark made-for-TV holiday movies, among them Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe; and the DVD releases of Crazy Rich Asians, Bel Canto, The Children Act and Juliet, Naked.